Here’s all the information you need for today’s BBC Proms concert being held at the Royal Albert Hall. And it’s a big one! Prom 31 (Sunday 11 August) features the great German violinist Anne-Sophie Mutter and legendary conductor Daniel Barenboim, and also features two absolute cornerstones of the classical music repertoire, from Brahms and Schubert respectively.
If you’re looking for more BBC Proms content, by the way, you’re in the right place. Just visit our all-singing, all-dancing 2024 BBC Proms guide to find everything you need to know about all the 2024 Proms taking place both in London and at other UK cities: Bristol, Nottingham and Gateshead are all hosting weekend festivals, while chamber music is the order of the day in Aberdeen, Belfast and Newport.
What’s on at the BBC Proms today?
Today’s BBC Proms concert features two of classical music’s best known and best-loved works, not to mention two absolute peaks of the Romantic era.
We begin with Johannes Brahms‘s supremely melodic and emotive Violin Concerto, easily one of the greatest violin concertos of all time.
Brahms’s only fiddle concerto owes much of its fame to the great violinist and conductor Joseph Joachim. This formidable performer had already helped to bring Beethoven’s formerly neglected Violin Concerto back into the repertoire: he now played a key role in securing Brahms’s concerto its own place in the repertoire.
The Violin Concerto was, in fact, the result of a long-held promise by Brahms to Joachim. The German composer had long promised the performer a concerto: it wasn’t until the success of his Second Symphony, however, that Brahms was able to turn his attention to writing a major work for violin and orchestra.
The Violin Concerto has some similarities with the symphony that preceded it. Both works are basically lyrical and emotional, with moments of great beauty.
After the interval tonight, we get a performance of Franz Schubert‘s magisterial final (completed) symphony, Symphony No. 9 (the ‘Great’). Now, this monumental but supremely joyous and melodic symphony is one of the best known in the classical repertoire. However, like Beethoven’s Violin Concerto we mentioned earlier, it languished in obscurity for some time. That all changed when Robert Schumann discovered the manuscript and, soon after, his friend and fellow composer Felix Mendelssohn conducted the work’s premiere.
It’s a fabulous work, with great rhythmic energy across all four movements. These are, in turn, a grand, boisterous Allegro first movement; a long, ardent Andante slow movement that Schumann hugely admired; a vigorous Scherzo; and a complex and dazzling Finale that, rather like the last movement of Mozart‘s own final symphony, creates a stunning interplay between multiple themes.
Who is performing at tonight’s Prom?
The soloist for tonight’s performance of the Brahms Violin Concerto is the great German violinist Anne-Sophie Mutter. She is joined by the legendary conductor (and pianist) Daniel Barenboim and the West-Eastern Divan Orchestra, the multinational orchestra formed by the latter that uses music to foster Arab-Israeli relations.
Is today’s BBC Prom on TV?
Prom 31 is being recorded for broadcast on BBC Four at a date to be confirmed. Check our guide to the televised 2024 BBC Proms for updates. And, if you want to hear it live (and why wouldn’t you?), the concert will be broadcast, like all the Proms, on BBC Radio 3.
What time does tonight’s Prom start?
Prom 31, featuring Anne-Sophie Mutter and Daniel Barenboim, gets underway at 7.30pm.
And how much are tickets for the BBC Proms today?
Tickets for Prom 31 are priced between £26 and £80. You also have the option of joining the famous Prommers: those classical music devotees who queue each day for the chance of an £8 ticket to that evening’s Prom.